In late Feburary of 2008 co-founder Steve Chen hinted that live streaming video could be coming this year to YouTube. Chen said, "2008. We’ll do it this year. Live video is just something that we’ve always wanted to do, we’ve never had the resources to do it correctly, but now with Google, we hope to actually launch something this year." However, YouTube won't be getting into the business of live streaming this year or next reports Michael Learmonth.

Learmonth writes, "But our source says that Google has never really seriously considered a live video service. We're told that the notion was discussed months after Chen's statement, but that the idea was tabled, for a variety of reasons. Chief among them: It would add significantly to Google's infrastructure and bandwidth costs at a time when it's trying to prove that the $1.65 billion it paid to buy the company will, at some point, pay off."

"We're told that YouTube execs estimated that if just 10% of the service's users took advantage of live streaming, the company would have to add 20% to 25% to its huge server and bandwidth infrastructure to support it. Given that advertising dollars for live streaming are even scarcer than they are on conventional Web video, that's a significant investment with minimal near-term return. YouTube's sales team is still trying to figure out how to sell the inventory it already has."

Live streaming could also create a new legal headache for YouTube even as it continues to fight with Viacom over copyright issues; sites like Justin.tv and UStream are already struggling to keeping copyrighted streams off their systems. Asked about YouTube's live streaming plans, a spokesperson said the company has "nothing more to share at this time."

"At some point, if one or more of the live streaming services truly takes off, Google will be faced with a build vs. buy decision, but that won't happen for at least another year or two. Getting in early here doesn't seem to be a huge advantage: Yahoo launched a service in February, but its most popular lifecasters frequently have an audience of less than 100 people."